IUCN threat status:

Distribution

Range Description

According to Rice (1998) Japanese Sea Lions formerly were known from the northwest Pacific where they occurred along the coasts of Japan, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea, and Russia at Sakhalin Island and southern Kamchatka. Burkanov (pers. comm.) says that the only reliable report of Japanese Sea Lions was of an animal shot in 1949 at Moneron Island in the Sea of Japan at the southwest corner of Sakhalin Island. He concludes that they occasionally occurred in the southern Kuril Islands but not at Kamchatka as Rice (1998) had stated.